Let's Never Forget
by memarkw
Summary: Remembering those who gave their lives...


Title: Let's Never Forget  
  
Author: memarkw   
  
Disclaimer: Anything Buffy is Joss'   
  
Spoiler: None   
  
NOTE: I realize that there are a lot of people that are not in the USA. The last Monday of May is Memorial Day, when we remember those who died in the line of duty while serving in our Armed Forces. This year it has taken on a new meaning with all of the fireman, policemen, and rescue workers who chose to face death and return to the WTC to try and help as many as they could.   
I write this piece with two young men in mind. In January, the town I live in lost one of it's own. We are about 7,000 people small. Jason Disney was killed in Afghanistan in the war on terrorism. I personally lost my best friend in the Gulf War on February 25, 1991 when a Iraqi scud missile hit US barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. This is my small way of honoring them and it is for them that I write this small piece. Please, let's remember...always.   
  
  
  
  
  
The young man lay in the foxhole, listening to bullets whizzing overhead. He had no intention of dying this day. He had family and friends at home that he planned on seeing again. Sunnydale wasn't always the happiest place on earth, but it was home and he planned on seeing it again.   
  
He knew he was lucky to have gotten out of Sunnydale with his life. In fact, the mortality rate among people his age was one of the main reasons that he joined the Marines, just to get out of there. And, by God, he would get back there in one piece.  
  
***   
  
"His name was Brian Edwards and he was my brother."   
  
"His name was Brian Edwards and he was my son."   
  
"His name was Brian Edwards and he was my friend."   
  
One by one the people made their way to the microphone. It had been intended to have just a couple of people come forward and give a small testimony of the kind of man he had been. So many people, though, had wanted to speak, it simply became a memorial where everyone introduced Brian as they knew him.   
  
When the memorial ended a little over an hour later, Buffy and her friends walked slowly and quietly back to the Magic Box. "It's just so much more real now, you know? I mean, I know people die in war, but this is too close to us."   
  
Xander agreed with the Slayer as he tried to talk without shedding tears. "We were pretty good friends in junior high. He never liked Jessie, though, so we went our own ways in high school. He was such a good... good..."   
  
Willow put her arm around her crying friend. "When they attacked us on 9/11, I thought it would be over soon. I never thought it would hit home like this. There's nothing here of strategic value. I guess they can get any of us, just by taking one of our own."   
  
Buffy turned around and walked in the other direction. Her friends just naturally followed her. She walked to the door of a florist and knocked until someone opened it. "I'm sorry. I know you're closed, but I need to ask a favor. I want to put flowers on the graves at the veteran's cemetery. I don't have a lot of money, but I want to get as many as I can."   
  
The elderly lady smiled at Buffy with tears in her eyes. "Honey, my Cecil is buried in that cemetery. I was just on my way to visit him. If you can get your friends to help, I'd gladly give you my entire inventory."   
  
Xander stepped forward and said "Can you give me about thirty minutes? Please?"   
  
The women watched as Xander ran back towards the church they had just left. True to his word, thirty minutes later he as back in front of the shop. Behind him were about seventy other people.   
  
"I asked them to help. Chuck'll be here any minute with his pickup. The other three flower shops are going to help. Let's go."   
  
Not much later, they had emptied the veteran's widow of her entire stock. As they left, people quietly placed money on the doorstep, more than replacing the cost of her flowers.   
  
When they reached the cemetery, there were many more vehicles overflowing with flowers and hundreds of people laying them on the graves of the veterans...Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. Not two blocks away, the same thing was being done in the town cemetery on the graves of the men and women of the town's police and fire departments who also given their lives in the line of duty.   
  
Xander was again crying for his lost friend and, this time, the girls were crying with him. He was finally able to talk - to ask one thing. "Guys, let's stop taking this so lightly. We fight the undead everyday and the soldiers, the sailors, the marines - all of them, they fight the bad guys. I don't want to forget that. Let's always remember...please."   
  
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To any veterans who read this, thank you. To Brian, I miss you my old friend...   
  
  
ENDNOTE: Some people have pointed out to me that a similar story took place on 7th Heaven. This was written long before that episode ever aired. 


End file.
